Posts Tagged ‘Bus’

Christ, I know what you’re thinking. Get your shit together, Rumorator. You said this was the year you would pump out more than 16 crap-assed posts. Prove it numbnuts. Shit, dude I’ve been writing some hackneyed government website for the past couple of weeks. It’s hard being a pinko these days.

But on with the show, eh.

The Beginning: Triple corked the fuck outta shit.Guys, big news Shaun White triple corked a slopestyle jump (or as us regulars call it, “a jump”). You can see it over on Yobeat, or like everywhere else.

But the more important Shaun White element was that he was on hit NBC show Goon, starring that dude from Friends. The one the was always saying “Whoa!” and “Bada Bing!” That dude is on the sequel to Friends and the show had Shaun White guest starring as Shawn Whyte “The greatest snowboarder of all fictional time™” and to talk about Stride gums.

I actually watched this, and you can too. And honestly, The Blanco was not the worst thing about this show. And this show is not the worst thing on TV. At the same time, it doesn’t really excel as a show. It just falls flat. I assume it will get cancelled. But hey, thanks for advancing the idea that all of snowboarding is just Shaun White.

Dude does triple corks, you know, right?

NEXT!A couple weeks ago my Milwaukee host family, Chip and Metal Brian and 2nd cousin N8zilla, were heading to northern Wisconsin to spend time at a place they just referred to as The Bus. I really tried to flake out on this. I didn’t like giving up a good shred weekend to drive four hours north.

But then things, changed up. The weather turned warm. It was suddenly perfect for northern Wisconsin-ing, and crap for snowboarding. I realized that at some point, every man wants to hang out at a place called “The Bus”. To be at such a place, just to talk shit with friends and drink beers outside is a pretty rad. Plus I learned it was wasn’t really that far away.

It still took forever to get there Friday night. Super dense fog had me travelling 35mph on the freeway and then stuck in the delightful little town of Wittenberg for over an hour. I wasn’t actually stuck but the fog was not letting me find my way out. It was like the Eagles said, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. And we make incredibly shitty music.”

Eventually, I made it and the first thought to enter my head was, “This is where people go to die. This is literally a bus in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of Wisconsin.” I ignored that feeling as I have like 3 other times in my life, just took a seat and got into some boozes.

The night consisted of sitting by a fire, drinking whiskey, drinking beer, poking sticks into the fire, trying to bake a potato, telling jokes, listening to black metal, listening to Paul Scheer review Anaconda, and listening to Mysterious Universe Plus episodes. It was shaping up to be a good evening, then I looked over to the condiments table and a saw this laying there:

This led into an hour-long discussion about how uncomfortable I was with a handgun just hanging out. Then I suggested a game that involved Chip and I make a game of doing donuts in our trucks while everyone else tries to shoot the tires . Nobody else was feeling that. Gun culture is still beyond me.

And to address the Chekhov in the room, the gun was fired at a few cans and a metal target, which may have been a frying pan, hanging in a tree.

The LA version naturally just talked about how rad skiing is. This is typical coverage. Snowboarders have always been the foil, so when the recent snowboarding bubble pops, it’s never about how trends are cyclical. The LA Times makes it about how skiing is what’s cool and everyone always comes back to skiing. To the LA Times snowboarding is just a phase you go through, like jewish girls, or other dudes. Snowboarding was never anything real, it was simply a fling. Now let’s get back to what’s important here, that being skiing.

The New York Times, America’s paper of record, uses the same jumping off point, but then addresses how snowboarding hasn’t built in a contingency plan. Snowboardist are essentially drowning themselves in the hottub.

If these predictions are accurate, we’re looking at a 20-30 percent drop in ridership. At first glance that might seem awesome. Less kids sitting around, fucking the whole scene up, right? And most of those kids don’t stick with it anyway. Except for the few of them who become the core riders. But 20-30 percent is a pretty significant drop for the industry. Fewer boards, boots, gloves coats, goggles, neck gaiters. All that shit will take a hit.

Of course, you could say that those that are being skimmed off are probably part of the problem in snowboarding. I feel confident assuming most of the skimmed do not get their gear from the core shops and thus aren’t really impacted those of us who are core+. There may be a new lull in snowboarding coming, and now that we have basked in the good life, are we ready to slink back into the background. Sure. Why not?